Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 3).djvu/170

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"My heart felt bursting; but I strove to repress the grief, the indignation with which it laboured.

"No, St. Julian, (said I, in a solemn voice), never will I enter the road of infamy you have marked out for me to take; I am your wife, nor shall any power but that, whose mandate we must all obey, make me give up my claims. What! did you snatch me from the altar of my God, from the dwelling of piety and peace, but to plunge me into guilt and misery?"

'Madeline, (cried he) be wise, nor mar my good intentions towards you by useless endeavours to support claims, which I am determined to deny; 'tis impossible, you know, for you to prove your marriage; there were, you may recollect, no witnesses to it, and with the name of the priest who performed the ceremony you are unacquainted.'

"Alas! those were truths which could not be controverted, and destitute as I was of any